When assembling bags of the type with closed bottom ends that are flattened and folded back over open ended body portions into bundles for wrapping, the multi-layered bottom ends of a collated stack will build up quicker than the opposite open end portion of the bags. After only a relatively few bags have been collected in a stack, a slope develops which considerably limits the height to which a stable bundle can be formed. Accordingly, bundles are formed of a series of limited quantity stacks assembled for wrapping with the bottom and top ends thereof at alternate sides to achieve a desired bundle quantity with substantially uniform thickness. Originally bundles were hand assembled in this method but with the advent of high production bag manufacturing machines (800 to 1,000 bags formed per minute) hand operations can no longer keep up with these production rates. Later developed pneumatic collating and stacking machines can handle up to approximately 650 bags per minute, but still cannot keep pace with the modern bag machines and are frequently down for servicing. Further, these pneumatic machines required large volumes of compressed air for operation.
More recently, a high production collating and stacking machine was developed which can accommodate these high performance bag manufacturing machines which is the subject of commonly assigned U.S. Ser. No. 053,027 filed June 28, 1979 on behalf of Arthur H. Kidd, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,269,557. The infeed conveying system use in this machine provided a star wheel member to receive individual formed and flattened bags from the high capacity bag machine which in turn deposited the bags in groups on a stop and go traveling collection conveyor. Herein, the bags were supported and guided for travel along the collection conveyor in a somewhat unstable upstanding position; that is, with their open ends extending upward. After a predetermined quantity of bags are collected, an intermittently driven conveyor chain advances a collected bag group toward a transfer surface of the collating and stacking machine. Spaced fingers attached to the chain maintain separation between individual counted bag groups and swing the groups through an approximate 90.degree. arc when depositing the bags horizontally on the transfer surface. It was found that with this motion, lofting and undesirable air disturbances were encountered causing occasional mispositioning of bags which results in poorly formed stacks. Further, the fingers did not afford a positive and reliable means of separating the bags into groups of a uniform quantity. The present invention overcomes the aforementioned problems resulting in a more reliable infeed of counted bags onto the transfer surface of the collating and stacking machine.